


A Cup Of Coffee

by hellobhav



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7098166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellobhav/pseuds/hellobhav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?” The words spill out of Steve’s mouth before his brain can process what he's doing, and almost instantly he's embarrassed, more so since Sharon is giving him this look that's incredulous and bewildered and baffled and amused. “I know, it's the worst possible time, but…” He shrugs, throwing her a sheepish smile. “I’d love to talk to you.” Find out more about you, and about Peggy.</p><p>Sharon regards him for a moment, biting her lip as if she's trying not to smile. Then she looks back at the reception, and Steve hopes she's considering his offer. She turns back to him, and there's a flicker of a smile at her lips. </p><p>“Give me five,” she says.</p><p>--</p><p>My take on the Steve/Sharon cafe scene that was allegedly cut out from CA:CW</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cup Of Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> One thing to note:  
> \- I firmly believe that Tony Stark grew up close to Peggy Carter and that he was at the funeral. My headcanon is that he was one of Peggy's pallbearers, and he also delivered a eulogy, but for the purposes of this story, we're just gonna have it that he was at the funeral, but that Steve didn't notice him (as per the movie).

The last person Steve expects to see at Peggy’s funeral is his former next-door neighbour Kate -- _Sharon_ _Carter_ , he’s learnt, and he thinks that **_of course_** _she’s Peggy’s niece, how could he not have realised that?_ Still, something stirs in him -- longing, he thinks, longing for Peggy, for finding out everything that he can about her, because now he’s got someone he can ask, he thinks.

 

And then Natasha’s there too, and he’s glad for her. He thinks they’ve become friends, in a way -- at any rate, he trusts her with his life, and having her here is comforting, as is the hug she gives him before she leaves for Berlin.

 

Steve lingers inside a little longer, gazing at the picture of Peggy, lost in thoughts about her. What was she like, he wonders. How did her life go? What were her likes, her dislikes, her favourite colour, her favourite food?

 

He lingers long enough that Sam comes in looking for him. He’s met Peggy’s daughter, Sam tells him, and she’d like to see him. Steve nods, follows Sam out, his eyes passing over the crowd that attended the funeral service, that have now gathered outside the church for the reception, as if he’s looking for a familiar face.

 

Sam leads him to where a woman with greying brown hair stands, giving a faint smile at the few people gathered around her, offering her their sympathies and sharing stories of the Peggy Carter they knew. 

 

Sam touches the shoulder of a woman with blonde hair who has her back to them, and she turns, and it’s Sharon, and she gives the two of them a warm smile. The older woman looks over at them, and she breaks out into a smile as well. Steve steps forward, hesitating for the briefest moment before he wraps his arms around Michelle. She returns the hug, squeezing his arm as she pulls away.

 

“Thank you for coming, Steve,” she tells him with a tired smile. “Mom would have been really happy knowing you were here.”

 

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he replies. “I’m so sorry, Michelle.”

 

She looks down with a little shake of her head. “It’s better this way,” she says quietly. “At least she’s not suffering anymore.”

 

Steve nods. “If you ever need anything, you let me know, okay?”

 

Michelle smiles, nods. “Thank you, Steve.”

 

Sam excuses himself, and Steve doesn’t see him for the next couple of hours. Then an older man and woman come over, and Sharon touches Steve’s arm, motioning for him to follow her. He nods at Michelle, who turns her attention to the man and the woman, and follows Sharon.

 

“So,” Steve says after a moment, glancing at Sharon. “Sharon Carter, huh?”

 

Her lips curl into a little smile, and she shrugs. “Surprise.”

 

He lets out a soft, short laugh, nodding.

 

“If it helps, you’re not the only one who didn’t know,” she says. “I didn’t want to be treated differently because of who I am. Or, because of who I’m related to. I actually got into the Academy on my mom’s last name.”

 

Steve looks at her with wonder in his eyes, wonder and amusement and amazement and it's obvious to anyone watching the two of them that Steve Rogers is floored by Sharon Carter. (And maybe that's why Sam’s disappeared.)

 

“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?” The words spill out of Steve’s mouth before his brain can process what he's doing, and almost instantly he's embarrassed, more so since Sharon is giving him this  _ look _ that's incredulous and bewildered and baffled and amused. “I know, it's the worst possible time, but…” He shrugs, throwing her a sheepish smile. “I’d love to talk to you.”  _ Find out more about you, and about Peggy. _

 

Sharon regards him for a moment, biting her lip as if she's trying not to smile. Then she looks back at the reception, and Steve hopes she's considering his offer. She turns back to him, and there's a flicker of a smile at her lips. 

 

“Give me five,” she says.

 

Steve tells her to take as much time as she needs. He watches as she slips back into the crowd, weaves through the mass of people to find her aunt and her uncle, Peggy’s kids, and says her goodbyes. Then she makes her way back to Steve, giving him this smile that Steve can’t quite read the meaning of.

 

“I’m driving.”

 

Steve lets her -- not that he has much of a choice. It’s a pleasant drive, the two of them making quiet conversation about the funeral service, and how there’s going to be a memorial service for SHIELD agents who want to pay their respects to the former director. Sharon extends the invitation to him, to the Avengers, but with a little shake of his head, Steve declines -- there’s too much on their plate right now. The accords, of course, Sharon knows, and she nods. Besides, Steve’s not too fond of crowds.

 

So it’s a good thing the cafe Sharon’s chosen is fairly empty (but then again, that might also be because it’s mid-afternoon on a weekday). 

 

They step inside and are almost instantly enveloped by warmth. Sharon leads the way to the counter, and they take a moment to study the menu before Sharon orders a hazelnut latte and Steve gets a black coffee -- Steve insists on paying, and Sharon lets him because it’s not worth getting into an argument over this. 

 

(She does, however, remind him that this is not a date, to which Steve agrees most emphatically, adding, in a totally serious tone, that if it  _ was _ a date, he’d have taken her somewhere a little more upscale. Sharon rolls her eyes and shakes her head, even as she ducks her head to hide a smile.)

 

She grabs a table by the window, gazing outside with her chin on her hand as she waits for Steve to come over with their drinks. It feels like the first time in the past few days that she’s had a moment to just... _ be _ ...and Sharon closes her eyes, gives herself a moment to grieve for her aunt. To  _ really _ grieve. To remember her. To remember everything that Aunt Peggy did for Sharon and her cousins and her nieces and nephews and the rest of her family, and even for Tony, because he was as much part of Peggy’s family as Sharon was. To remember  _ Aunt Peggy _ , rather than  _ Peggy Carter _ , former agent of the SSR, co-founder and former director of SHIELD. 

 

She draws in a shaky breath, letting it out slowly, rubs the back of her neck and tries to regain her composure.

 

She hears Steve’s footsteps -- living next door to him has made her embarrassingly familiar with his footsteps -- and Sharon looks up, managing a smile as he sets two cups of coffee down and takes a seat across from her.

 

“You alright?” Steve asks.

 

Sharon gives him this  _ look _ that consists of a rather bemused smile, and,  _ okay, yeah, that was a pretty pointless question _ .

 

He gives a little laugh, shaking his head. “Sorry. Obviously you’re not okay, you just came from your aunt’s funeral. That was a dumb thing to ask.”

 

She smiles, looking down into her coffee as she swirls it, mixing a packet of sugar in. “I think it hasn’t really...sunk in yet, y’know?” she says, glancing up at him.

 

Steve nods. His mind drifts to all the people he’s lost, everyone he’s buried -- everyone who seems to have come back from the dead. 

 

“You know,” he begins, “when I took the plane down, all those years ago, I never thought I’d come back. I never thought I’d see Peggy again, either. And when I came back, when I found out that she was still alive…Seeing her again, after all those years…” He manages a faint smile. “It was disconcerting -- seventy years had passed, the world kept on spinning, but for me, it was like I’d seen her just yesterday.”

 

Sharon watches him as he speaks. There’s pain etched in his features, and she thinks that it should be obvious to anyone looking at him that Steve Rogers is older than he seems.

 

He takes a deep breath. “I thought I knew what she was like,” he goes on, his eyes meeting Sharon’s, “but coming here today, listening to everyone talk about the Peggy they knew, I realised that...I didn’t. It’s hard to...to get to know someone when there’s a war going on around you. You think you know someone, but all you know is what they’re like in  _ this _ situation. You don’t know...you don’t get to find out what they were like  _ as a person _ , and...I wish I’d had the chance to know Peggy.”

 

“You two are so alike,” Sharon tells him. Steve blinks at her. His features soften into a smile, and she continues. “You’re both always standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, standing up for what you believe is right. You’ve both got your principles and you stick to them and nothing can shake your foundations.”

 

Steve nods, as if he’s thanking her for telling him that, as if he doesn’t quite believe that she means it.

 

“She used to tell us stories about you.”

 

A faint flush colours Steve’s neck and his face. Sharon thinks it’s sweet that he’s embarrassed, and she thinks he shouldn’t be surprised, because  _ of course _ Peggy’s children and grandchildren and niece and nephews would have grown up on stories of him, right?

 

“When we were little, the stories were about Captain America, about the man who defied orders and went to hell and back, storming a HYDRA base to rescue soldiers that the army had given up on. Captain America refused to sit by and do nothing, to be the army’s... _ dancing monkey _ , that was what she always said, when he should have been out there in the field, fighting for what was right.”

 

Steve doesn’t look at Sharon as she speaks. He can’t, because it’s awkward hearing about how the woman he fell in love with told her family about him. He can’t, because he remembers everything so vividly -- he remembers  _ Bucky _ \-- and his hands tighten around his coffee mug like he’s trying to keep himself grounded in the present.

 

“But sometimes -- and this got a lot more important as we got older -- she would tell us about Steve Rogers, the skinniest, sorriest, most pathetic excuse for a soldier the U.S. army had ever seen, who threw himself at a fake grenade when everyone else ran away.”

 

His eyes flicker up to hers, brow furrowing slightly in confusion.  _ Why would Peggy tell them about that? _

 

“It’s like, the older we got, the more we needed to know that Captain America wasn’t just this...this amazing superhero. He was a good person too, and that was what she wanted all of us to remember. It’s not enough to do good things. If you’re not a good person, all the good things you do count for nothing.”

 

He gives her a shy sort of smile, murmurs a thanks and drops his gaze again.

 

“Tony hated it,” Sharon laughs. Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she leans back in her seat, a grin playing at her lips as Steve looks up in surprise. “As if it wasn’t enough that all day long, all his dad would ever talk about would be Captain fucking America, he had to hear it at Aunt Peggy’s too.”

 

“Wait, you grew up with Tony?”

 

She laughs again (and it’s a nice sound, Steve thinks, and he likes the way she throws her head back when she does, and the way the corners of her eyes crinkle up). “Of course I grew up with Tony. Aunt Peggy and his dad were friends, since her SSR days.”

 

_ Oh. Of course _ . 

 

“The Carters and the Sousas and the Starks, we practically grew up together as one big family. We were all so competitive,” she tells him. “In everything. Especially me and Tony. Exams, science fairs, sports, everything. You name it, we probably competed over that. We were closest in age,” she adds. “He was always just a little bit better in the science things, but I wiped the floor with him when it came to sports.”

 

Steve’s amused. He realises he doesn’t really  _ know _ Tony either, and this little bit of unexpected trivia is...nice.

 

“He wasn’t at the funeral,” Steve muses out loud, frowning slightly.

 

“He was,” Sharon tells him with a firm nod. “Right at the back. Last one in, first one out. He...doesn’t handle grief so well. And he had to be in Berlin. He’ll talk to Aunt Michelle and Uncle Eddie though, if he hasn’t already.” She pauses, then adds, “I think he took care of the funeral arrangements...”

 

Steve nods slowly. There’s so much he doesn’t know. With a sigh, he cradles his coffee with both hands and sips it.

 

Sharon watches him, wonders what’s going through his mind.

 

“What did you want to know?” she asks softly.

 

Steve looks up at her. Where does he start? He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly as he sets his mug back down on the table. “I don’t know,” he admits, looking down. “I don’t know. Everything.”

 

She smiles. “Her favourite colour was blue. She said she hated flowers, because they took up unnecessary space and were just  _ pretty _ and they died too soon, but Uncle Daniel bought her flowers every year on their anniversary, and her face would sort of...light up anyway. She tried to do  _ everything _ , and I think she held everyone else to her standards. She was director of SHIELD, she was a mom, she was an aunt, she became a grandmother...Growing up around her, hers were big shoes to fill.  _ Big _ . Some of us shied away from her, but the rest of us, like me and Tony, she pushed us to be our best. To be  _ better _ than our best. She wasn’t perfect -- far from it -- I know when they went on holidays, Aunt Peggy could never really put work behind her. She was always on call, always on standby, even when she wasn’t at SHIELD. Aunt Michelle kind of resented her for that, I think. She was this...this larger than life figure, y’know? But she always tried to be there for us. For her family, for anyone she considered family.”

 

Her voice cracks, and Sharon pauses, draws in a shaky breath as she lowers her gaze. Steve does the same, looking away to give her a minute to compose herself. Sharon closes her eyes, telling herself that this is not the time to cry.

 

When she looks up at Steve again, he’s still not looking at her. She studies him, notes the sadness that’s evident on his face, and wonders if there’s sadness on hers.

 

“I should go.”

 

Steve raises his eyes to hers, looking like he’s ready to tell her to please stay a little longer, but he gives her a small smile and nods.

 

“I’ve got some stuff to do before I pack up and leave London,” she goes on, not that she really needs to explain anything.

 

Steve nods again. “Of course.”

 

There’s a pause, a moment of stillness where it seems like neither of them really wants to leave.

 

“Thank you, Sharon,” Steve says earnestly.

 

“Anytime,” she replies with a tired sort of smile.

 

There’s another pause, and almost in sync, the two of them stand. 

 

“Mind if I drive this time?”

 

Sharon can’t keep herself from grinning. She shuffles through her bag, pulls out the keys to the rental car and holds them out to Steve.

 

“Be my guest.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and if you're so inclined, please let me know what you thought of it!


End file.
